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The New Economy of Fealty

May 2, 2013Harold James
Since the late twentieth century, most employment growth has come in services, particularly personal services – a pattern that looks like a reversal of a previous historical trend. Indeed, the element of personal dependence that many of the new service jobs imply is a throwback to the preindustrial world.

PRINCETON – Since the 2008 financial crisis, most industrial economies have avoided anything like the collapse that occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But, despite large-scale fiscal and monetary stimulus, they are not experiencing any dramatic economic rebound. Moreover, the pre-crisis trend of rising income and wealth inequality is continuing (in marked contrast to the post-Great Depression period, in which inequality declined). And survey data show a rapid decline in people’s satisfaction and confidence about the future.

The explanation of the post-crisis malaise – and people’s perception of it – lies in the combination of economic uncertainty and the emergence of radically new forms of social interaction. Long-term structural shifts are fundamentally changing the nature of work, and thus of the way that we think of economic exchange.

In the early twentieth century, a large share of even advanced economies’ populations was still employed in agriculture. That proportion subsequently fell sharply, and the same decline could later be seen in industrial employment. Since the late twentieth century, most employment growth has come in services, particularly personal services – a pattern that looks like a reversal of a previous historical trend.

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James gets a few things exactly right: rising income and wealth inequality continue unabated. For everyone below the 70th percentile of income (roughly) this means trouble, the more you project outward. Hence, the survey results. He is spot on about an army of edu-bureaucrats who drain billions from education and provide nothing but more hiring of their own kind, ed school gobbledy-gook ("outcomes assessments" is the latest tripe), and absurdly meaningless teacher training and "student enrichment." All the rest of the stuff about servants is only relevant to James and his ilk, those well above the 70th percentile. Wake up! Those of us in the middle and below are not able to hire armies of staf to reassure us about our identity and that of our children's. The rich did away with that level of discretionrty income for the so-called "middle class" a long time ago. Whatever, take on some more debt, buy the latest gadget and download some apps. It is designed to make you feel cool even if you are sinking.

The malaise = no economic rebound, rising inequality
Economic and social relations are shaped on a master - servant model. Let's be clear, this goes beyond the services economy, it's about personal services, not impersonal offers. And this is coming with growing economic uncertainty. So we will be servants of the rich and we will have very unstable job prospects, the master's option on our welfare will be discretionary.
The good thing is that this model is able to sustain growth and employment.
So there is no reason to address economic inequality, it is the key for our future prosperity.
Towards the end of the article the servants totally disappear from the perspective of the new society, we only acknowledge about them the fact that they pose an intimacy, privacy problem to their masters.
And that is the moral issue of this projected evolution.
I'm glad our masters are thinking about the future and they are deeply moral individuals.

An overview of the articles points are quite stark. The new economy is plainly the service of filling in the ever-widening entropy gaps in peoples relationships at the family and societal levels -- and like the filling of a cavity, it is expensive, painful, unnatural, awkward, exhausting, and depressing.

This is exactly wrong in a world heading headlong into global & down interdependence. "Wrong?" -- why that's the wrong word, I meant catastrophic.

Never before has there been such urgency to work toward new familial and social bonds. And in sum this comes down to one thing: inculcating a deep abiding sense of mutual responsibility in everyone. Only when I know -- I really know -- that we all understand that each one's happiness and well-being depends upon that of everyone else, will I trust them, and they trust me.

Integral educational initiative and media methods of building up related societal values. Round table discussion outside the standard political representative type of framework -- something truly grass-roots. This is really how things will need to start I think.

You know the joke about the father warning his son not to trust anyone these day, except for the father. And to demonstrate his love and the son's need to trust in it, he tells him to fall backwards and trust Dad to catch. He does this faithfully, and almost breaks his neck when he hits the floor. Piped up Dad standing over him, "And that teaches you not to trust ANYBODY -- not even your own father!"

Well, we had better learn to trust falling into Dad's arms again -- and in the not to distant future, even into the arms of complete strangers. For if we don't, this Humpty Dumpty of human civilization is itself in for one big fall -- and there will be no one to catch us.

The key is to move into "true service economy", the real "economy of fealty" in the literal meaning of the word.
Today we use words like "service", "trust", "love" but we do not know or care abut the fundamental meaning of those words.
And the foundation of all this is within human nature, human attitude.
Today and so far in our history it does not matter what words we used for our thinking, activities, the primary intention behind anything we do is self-profit, self fulfillment.
If I love, serve another I do so in order to gain something for myself, otherwise I cannot even move a finger.
Even the most altruistic people have this intention behind their actions, and many times, usually after they passed away we start to reveal their true, self centered intentions.
This is not a flaw, a sin, it is simply how we are born, the human ego directs us towards ourselves all the time.
This propelled humanity to the present degree before, but today suddenly this drive has turned against us. Why?
Because we evolved into such a global, interconnected and interdependent network, that we resemble cells, organs of the same organism. In such a system any self-centered action leads to harm for the system, inevitable leading to destruction.
The whole global crisis stands as a proof, not to mention more and more emerging research proving our interconnectedness, interdependence.
Thus we truly need a service economy, but in the literal sense, we need to serve each other in a mutually responsible and complementing fashion in order to keep the whole system functioning optimally.
Even this system can be understood selfishly, egoistically: in today's global system if the system suffers, I also suffer, if the system prospers, I also prosper.
We need to rebuild the whole human adventure in this new, truly serving way.